Oktoberfest Links Up With Bring a Friend Night

If it were nice outside I suppose we could make it Decktoberfest (as opposed to Docktoberfest), but it will be blustery and probably raining when everyone arrives for our second annual Oktoberfest tonight. We are combining it with our third annual Bring a Friend Night, and it promises to be a fun evening ahead. With three cancelations, we will be a group of nine. Brats--and I don't mean bad children--are cooking in the Crock Pot, and there will be other German food and, yes, beer on hand for this festive occasion we have been looking forward to for some time. Ready to party!

Piggy Park Gets a Makeover

Our beloved Piggy Park (aka, as in 'actually known as,' Clayton Memorial Playground) was cleaned, painted and refurbished on September 19-20, 2015, thanks to 75 community and active-duty Navy volunteers. Though our voices will never be heard through this venue, we say thank you. Our memories of meeting at this playground with our children, summer after summer, remain vivid and treasured. (I try to forget Elletu's youngest daughter covered with the purple paint that had been maliciously spread on the little 'merry-go-round' that one day---oh, what a mess!) My youngest son's preschool graduation picnic was in that park. We had a BVG anniversary picnic there on June 3, 2014 (see Older Posts). I was interested to find out that the playground was originally built 43 years ago, in 1972, just four years before I moved to Port Orchard, and it was constructed by another Navy crew of volunteers in memory of one of their own, Michael Clayton (see article above, from the Port Orchard Independent). There is quite a bit of history there, and not just ours. I wonder how many other moms and grandmas share our feelings of nostalgia about this place. And one more thing...whose idea was it to removed the little piggies the kids could ride???

Most Senior BVB Turns 68!

 

He is not only the most senior BVB, but he is the most senior of the BVG's/BVB's combined. Today j's husband---aka William Braveheart---turns 68. He is well-preserved and all tuned up after knee surgery last week. I'm not about to check under the hood, but he seems to run smoothly even after putting on all these miles. He is a shining light at every after-church coffee gathering at Cutter's Point. This photo, by the way, is of his award-winning car, his beauty. Both the car and driver are classic, classy and tired. I should say the car is well-tired, and the driver is, well, tired, but then he is re-tired, as in retired. (Note to Cool and Elletu: Retired people do get tired!!) He shares a birthday with my son, who turns 36 today. Two good reasons to celebrate this October 28--two awesome guys born on the same day, albeit 32 years apart.

So happy birthday, William Braveheart! We are all glad you were born, that you married j and brought her to Port Orchard, specifically to Bethel Valley Lane, so we could meet and form this amazing group, the Bethel Valley Girls. Obviously, it was God-ordained. Thank you, and get ready to party-hearty Friday night with the BVB's.  

Nanny Cool Takes on Some BVGP's

Bambi and Sunshine are packed up and ready to go to Nanny Cool's house. A few decades down the road, and we have replaced M.I.L.K. (Mothers Into Little Kids) with G.I.L.P. (Grandma's Into Little Plants). A new kind of 'kid'-sitting. Bambi and Sunshine don't require as much diligent care as our children did when they were young. We were young too. Now we are old. Babysitting, aka Plant-sitting, is more our speed. These two BVGP's were excited to go to Nanny Cool's. As far as they are concerned, "Home is Where the Watering Can Is." If I were younger I would be stitching that out by counted cross-stitch.

Duck Boat Goose

 

 

A year before a tragedy involving a Duck Boat Tour vehicle occurred on Seattle's Aurora Bridge, I took these pictures of what was then such a hilarious scene. We were driving to Ivar's Salmon House on the edge of Lake Union, and just as we were approaching it on the left, traffic was halted in either direction--with us in the front in our lane--because of a row of geese crossing the street. That in itself was cute, because who doesn't like to see traffic stopped for a group of animals crossing at their own what seems like a ridiculously slow pace? The hilarity factor increased exponentially when we looked at the stopped oncoming traffic and realized a Duck Boat was stopped for a row of geese! I thought of the preschool game, Duck Duck Goose, and the photo I took gained the name Duck Boat Goose.

I never did post these photos because, quite honestly, I kind of lost them online, in fact I was pretty sure I had deleted them inadvertently. And then, just a few days after the Duck Boat tragedy (referred to in the post entitled Shared Experiences, the Ties That Bind) happened, these photos strangely reappeared on my computer. At first I did not have the heart to post them, and even now, with memorials happening for the International college students killed on the bus the compromised Duck Boat rammed, I wondered if I have even waited enough time. Hearts are still very heavy.

This oddly reminds me of a widely popular comedian, impersonator and musician from the early '60's, Vaughn Meader, who found fame in 1962 after the release of a comedy record, The First Family. The album spoofed President John F. Kennedy (with him doing his voice) and the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy. It went on to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1963. At the peak of his career he performed his Kennedy impersonation on variety shows. My family had a copy of his album, and it was hilarious. We loved it.

But then came November 22, 1963, a very dark day in American history, when President Kennedy was assassinated. We knew we could never listed to Meader's album again and ever find it even mildly amusing, so my mother purposefully broke the LB in half and tossed it in the garbage.

Vaughn Meader's career ended that day. Although he would later try to revive it doing non-Kennedy-related material, it was doomed because of what happened in Dallas on that fateful day. Copies of The First Family were immediately pulled from shelves across the country, and a JFK-related Christmas single that had been released shortly before the assassination was quickly withdrawn. Previously scheduled appearances, including one for the Grammy Awards show, were cancelled. Meader eventually moved back to his native Maine and went back to being a musician and managed a pub. He was still married to his fourth wife when he passed away in 2004 at the age of 68.

Forty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Meader quipped, "It was a character assassination. My character was assassinated, and I got a bum wrap." Forty years after the world tragedy, people were ready to laugh again---probably not his family, but other people perhaps.

Duck Boat Tours are primarily offered as tourist attractions all over the United States in harbor, river and lake cities. They are both educational and entertaining. My husband and I took a Duck Boat Tour in Ketchikan, Alaska and enjoyed the adventure immensely. I didn't give a thought to its safety. It was a fun experience. The accident in Seattle a few weeks ago cut short five lives, but they were on the bus the Duck Boat hit. The first lawsuit has been filed--I knew that was coming, and for good reason if indeed that particular Duck Boat had not followed maintenance requirements. The owner of the Seattle fleet was a successful business owner just a few minutes before the crash, and then everything came, well, crashing down. I suspect his career, like Vaughn Meader's, is over.

So is it too early to look at a photo of a Duck Boat stopped for a row of geese crossing a busy Seattle street? We saw the boat load of people up on their feet snapping photos of the geese too, but their perspective wasn't as humorous as ours. I'm sure they can still look back and say, as so many have, "Wow, that sure was a fun tour!"

I have cried tears over that tragic accident, but I can still look at this photo and say, "The Duck stopped for the Geese---ha ha ha!" And I am so glad I found these photos.

Autumn Blessings---it's raining and it's cozy!

Autumn Blessings

SEPT OCT NOV

Beautiful Colors

 apple cider * crisp air * caramel apples

Bringing in the Harvest

Carving pumpkins

HAYRIDES & Bonfires

falling leaves

bobbing for apples * Halloween

pumpkin spice lattes * sipping hot chocolate

CORNUCOPIA

Happy Thanksgiving!

The countdown to Christmas begins

SIMPLE JOYS * FAMILY * TRADITIONS

It's 5:00 Somewhere

This photo came in from j shortly after 3 PM today. She and Sir William Braveheart journeyed to beautiful Lake Crescent today. She must have gotten confused and thought she was in Chicago, if you know what I mean. This is one of the perks of retirement.

Laugh With Leslie

Seen in the window of Knapp's Restaurant in Tacoma's Proctor District. I don't know who this Leslie is, but with that pink boa, the sunglasses covering her eyes, a dog by her side and a drink in her hand, she looks suspiciously like a BVG.

Bessie Makes Her Way to Elletu

I'm sure Elletu will be MOO-ved by her latest and last birthday gift from Cool, Bessie for her Bathroom, who was late to the party, so late she didn't make it at all. I think she is UTTERly adorable! Elletu's birthday was so important we have spread it out for almost one month, MILKING it for all it's worth. We love Elletu, she's worth it, and that's no BULL.

Shared Experiences, the Ties That Bind

***As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, this is not my only blog. I have been writing something like a weekly blog for my family for over eight years, ever since my husband and I moved to Virginia from Hawaii and were, for the first time, empty-nesters. The blog has a name, Monday Morning Update, now just referred to as the MMU. It began as a way to let our three grown children (one in Hawaii, one in London, and the other in North Carolina) know what we had done over the weekend and the previous week to get to know our new state. Over time people asked if they could 'join the MMU,' people we consider extended family. Today there are 18 contacts on the MMU list, and it has become somewhat interactive as our children and others respond back and forth. Once we moved back to Washington the MMU morphed in to much more than an update on our travels. Often it is humorous, always I have various photos attached, sometimes it is a little bit serious, as it once a week ago. Because the subject was 'Shared Experiences, the Ties That Bind,' I though much of the Bethel Valley Girls as I wrote it. With just a little editing, I am copying it here:

 

Whether good or bad, shared experiences tend to bind people together. That’s one way families stay close together even when scattered and separated by many miles. It is the same with friends and even with communities. I have been thinking about that this past week, and certainly it comes to mind every week when I sit down to write the MMU. What started eight years ago as a weekly “This is what Dad and I did over the weekend to get acquainted with our new home, Virginia, but really to help us mask the pain we feel of missing all of you” eventually morphed into “Remember when this happened?” That’s because by reminiscing about shared experiences, we felt closer to our children we missed so much. Over time the MMU Family expanded because of shared experiences with more people whose lives have intertwined with the original five members of our family. These are the ties that bind.

Since last week’s MMU, a few things have happened in the Seattle area to bring people together, all with national, even International, ramifications. One was so tragic, it hurts to think about it. On Thursday a Seattle Duck Boat Tour vehicle with over 30 tourists aboard went out of control on the Aurora Bridge and eventually crashed in to the side of a charter bus carrying International students out for a tour of Seattle just days after they arrived here to study abroad. Dozens were injured, and tragically, five students from North Seattle Community College died as a result of this crash. As we watched the news coverage of this terribly sad event, I got such a lump in my throat as we saw reports of the hundreds of people who quickly showed up to donate blood, to bring food to the 90 first-responders who were on the scene almost immediately, of the people who jumped barriers to offer their assistance, multitudes who continue to reach out to grieving family and friends. As with any disaster, the goodness of people rises to the surface. People want to join together to help in any way they can. Bad times can bring people together.

And then, on the flipside, good times bring people together too. Of course it’s more fun to focus on that. Yesterday was a good example. A record crowd of over 69,000 filled Seattle’s Century Link Stadium to cheer the Seattle Seahawks on to victory over the Chicago Bears, 26-0. I admit I get a lump in my throat when I watch the jubilant Seattle players, whose stories we now know so well, hug each other after superb plays. I also get a lump in my throat when I see players from opposing teams hug each other after games, win or lose, big smiles on their faces. I get that same lump when I see the fans jumping up and down in glee, all wearing their ‘12’ jerseys, cheering on the team they love so much. Same lump for the singing of the national anthem. Shared experiences in good times bring people together.

Did you see the Blood Moon/lunar eclipse last night? After watching the Seahawks game, we drove out to Manchester, where we used to live, and parked on a side street just one block over from Leola Lane. We were on the hill looking across Puget Sound to downtown Seattle, West Seattle, the Cascade Mountains beyond, and, off to the right, Mount Rainier, which looked like a giant strawberry ice cream cone in the evening glow. As we drove to our chosen spot we saw all the cars lined up on all the other streets of this small community, filled with people with binoculars. We were all there for the shared experience of viewing something that won’t happen again for 18 years.

While we were waiting for the moon to rise and be eclipsed, I received a text from my friend Pat, with whom I had so many shared experiences in Hawaii, we are bonded for life. Pat now lives in North Carolina, but she was texting, out of the blue, about watching the lunar eclipse from a hotel parking lot in Kentucky, on the last leg of their three-week vacation. She had no idea we were preparing to do the same out in Manchester. How fun it was to text back and forth, sharing this global experience from opposite sides of our country. 

As we sat in our car, we reminisced about the eclipse of the sun many years ago, when our children were very small. I had them up to the window in our living room to watch how dark it got that morning. Over at the shipyard it got strangely quiet as all of the seagulls thought it was bedtime and went to roost! Yes, this was a shared experience for them too.

The moon was beautiful last night, from the beginning of the eclipse to the end when it became amazingly bright. And I was wondering, did our MMU Family members in Sweden and Greece witness the same eclipse?

Our whole day yesterday was a happy one of shared experiences. After attending church together with friends of decades, we all met for coffee at our usual place, Cutters Point in Gig Harbor, sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine like we have as a group countless times. Funny, Pat and her husband came to mind as I sat there. I was thinking about the one time they joined us at Cutters Point after attending church with all of us when they spent a week with us two years ago during their move from Hawaii to North Carolina. I also thought of our friend John, no longer with us but such a key person in our life when we think about shared experiences. Laurie was with us, as always, bonded with us for life, because besides all the happy times we spent together through life, we also all walked beside her through John’s journey through cancer and then his passing in January. Our shared experiences of friendship have helped her cope, heal and become strong again. And yesterday, as we all sat around two tables together, we were laughing and reminiscing as we so often do. To be sure, we have all gone through very sad times in life, but because of the ties that bind, looking back on life, somehow it all seems good because we have experienced it all, the good and the bad, together.

I just want to say today that I am eternally grateful for all the shared experiences I have with all of you. They are what bind the MMU Family together.

***********

And they are also what bind the BVG's together.

BVB Gone Wild

To the BVG's, no explanation is needed. This makes sense to us. This is what it means to be a BVB. Sir William Braveheart. He doesn't get out often. Hat on loan from The Duke.

One More, Before I Go to Bed

Oh dear, the Sisters will slam me if they know I am still up at 1:45 A.M. As noted earlier, I have been dealing with computer issues. I sat here for four and a half hours figuring out some problems and doing one important thing, deleting e-mails going back three years! The majority of them included pictures and/or YouTube videos of each of my four grandchildren. How do you delete pictures of grandchildren??? I had to free up this poor thing so it can start 'breathing' again. Lots of my deleting e-mails were from the BVG's, things I didn't have the heart to delete, but I just had to do it. In fact, for the first time since the first day I ever did e-mail, my inbox is EMPTY!!! And here is one more things I retrieved from my messages, this from one of the Sisters. I think we adopted this phrase as one of the BVG Core Values, with a short rewrite to put it this way:

"Now that I'm old I don't want people thinking, 'What a sweet little old lady....' I want 'em saying, 'Crap! What's she up to now?"           INDEED!

Drawback of Husbands Retiring---Just One Little One

 

 

Had a fun day today shopping with j. She and I make up the 50% of BVG's who are retired and whose husbands are also retired. My retired husband was able to drive me to her house and drop me off so he could have the car for the day for running errands, since j was driving us to Tacoma. Her retired husband was busy with errands today but returned just before my husband and I were about to drive away. More the most part---and I would say almost 99% of the time---j and I are thrilled to have them around the house with us in the daytime, but there are those moments when we miss our alone time and our ability to get a zillion things done in a day, and quickly so, because we had the full day to ourselves. I can't say we've ever been startled by them, as the couple above, but just a little frustrated at times. It is all kept in perspective, though, by the fact that our friend Laurie who joined us today would give anything to have her retired husband be around the house with her these days. He passed away eight and a half months ago. So we don't complain about this minor frustration. How blessed we are!

Tragic Tale of Grapes

Due to severe problems with my computer I have spent hours deleting old e-mails (back to 2012???) and unneeded documents. Sometime, long ago, one of the Sisters e-mailed this to me. She will be surprised to see that I finally added it to the blog. For the record, I had grapes for breakfast this morning, and I consumed no wine. Is that tragic? You be the judge.